Thursday, 24 November 2011

So Microsoft has sneaked in SP3 a while ago for Office Servers 2007 and the MS Office Suite 2007. I could only start testing these update now due to work constraints, i have however been monitoring the Web on Forums and Groups to see if anything "Disastrous" is happening with Service Pack 3.

The descriptions and downloads are available from here : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2591018. After downloading i attempted to start installing the Project Server 2007 SP, at which point the Installer recommends the installation of the WSS 3.0 SP first. If not done first the install cannot continue.

So i then installed the WSS 3.0 SP for my Virtual Test environment and i did NOT run the Config Wizard after the installation finished, i then proceeded to install the Project Server 2007 SP, on both occasions the install went well, but the only "Drawback" is the amount of time it took to Install the Project Server SP, in my virtual environment it took about 45 Minutes!

After that i ran the Config Wizard and that went well, In totality that is. I did have issues with the Project Queuing Service and Project Server Event Service that did not want to start. Initially i thought it had to do with the Service Pack that i installed, but it turned out it was actually the Virtual Server, the actual Upgrade went well with the exception of the Services that could not be start from the Config Wizard, as seen below.

Failed to Start Queuing Service

So my first thing to try and start the Services Manually, and it is here that i figured out what was wrong, as the error said "Failed to start in a timely fashion" as seen below:

So this made me wonder if the issue is related to Project Server or to my Host OS / Virtual environment. I searched a bit and found a very nice posting by Rob Bowers explaining what happens and it turns out it IS the Virtual Environment and not Project Server. the steps i followed to resolve the issues is listed in the blog posting, but i will post them here for simplicity sake.

1. Identify the drive on which ProjectServer was installed.

2. Open a command prompt on the front-end servers (where the error is occurring) and navigate to the following path:

Note: Since C: is the default path for the Project Server installation, C: has been used in this example. If a different drive letter has been used, use that drive letter instead.

This process will finalize any updates prior to implementing the fix. (In my case this was not necessary as the config Wizard Completed successfully)

3. Once this process has completed, open the registry editorStart=>Run=>Regedit Once the registry editor has been opened navigate toHKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control Here it will be necessary to create a new DWORD key with the following value:ServicesPipeTimeout DWORD 60000 (decimal)

Note: 60000 = 60 Seconds.

4. Next, look for the WaitToKillServiceTimeout key – take note of its current value – and then change the value to 120000

Note: 120000=120 Seconds.

5. Reboot the Server.Test by going to Start=>Run=>services.msc and examining the Microsoft Office ProjectServer Queue Service and Event Service. These services should now show as started, and assuming nothing else is wrong with the environment, the Queue Service should now be able to process jobs. The error messages in the event viewer should also have stopped.

After the re-boot the services started up by themselves (as it set to "Auto Start") and everything is working as expected.

Tuesday, 22 November 2011

I continually hear of people trying to figure out what Update(s) are currently installed on a farm. Normally what i would do is go through the Installed Updates in Control Panel > Add remove Programs, and the try to figure out (Between a large amount of updates, which is which.)

Normally SP1 is listed quite clearly there but the CU's are not that simple to find. I looked around for a while and then i found it in the most simplest of places. In the Central Admin site > Upgrade and Migration > Check product and patch installation status.

From that option all Services in the Farm will be listed with it's relevant Updates. Screenshot below shows only the Project Server Update Sections.

From there we can easily see the version numbers for Project Server, the Language Pack as well as the Web Front End Server. So either way some Searching may be involved but you have a lot less info to work through.

To find a list of the SharePoint and Project Server Version Numbers have a look here: (Courtesy of Microsoft )